Film Analysis of The Wicker Man - Movie Review Example

Teacher Film analysis of The Wicker Man The film en d The Wicker Man was a story inspired by the novel Ritual by David Pinners. It was adapted into film and directed by Robert Hardy and written by Anthony Schaffer. The original version of the film was released in 1973 and a remake was made in 2006. The story revolved around the visit of Police Sergeant Neil Howie to the far flung island of Summerisle to look for a Rowan Morrison who had been missing for quite some time already. Incidentally, the detective was a devout Christian. Upon his visit to Summerisle, he observed the unusual practices of the people which can be categorized as paganism. He found it offensive as it deviate from his Christian orientation and find the practice of May Day celebrations to be highly unusual. He stayed at the Green Man Inn in the island where he found harvest photographs that showed Rowan and discovered that sacrifices were made by the islanders when a harvest is poor. He thought that Rowan would be sacrificed so he infiltrated the May Day celebration to save Rowan. They were caught however while fleeing. The twist of the story was that it was not after all Rowan that will be sacrificed but rather Detective Howie because he fit their criteria for sacrifice. The film had a mixed reception after its release. In the box office, the film had moderate success. It won an award in the 1974 Festival of Fantastic Films in Paris then faded into obscurity (Cinemafantastique). It however created a following among its fans. Years later, the film still received a positive response from its critique where the film was considered as part of one of the most distinguished British film during the opening of the Summer Olympics. A remake was even released in 2006 manifesting its positive impact from its critique. The creators of the film Anthony Shaffer and Robert Hardy intended to create the film as “a critique of the New Age and Pagan cults that had become a noticeable part of the countercultural landscape of the late 1960s and early ’70s” (Franks 63). Both hoped that with the showing of the film, they would be able to show the horrors of Nazism by drawing the analysis of cultism from the film. In a way, the film draw an analogy between the Holocaust and the Jonestown Massacre in the film with “the centrality of sacrifice as an articulation of power over weakness” (Franks 63). This intention however was just too politicized and just too deep for movie goers who just wanted to be entertained by going to movie houses and so this message did not come across the audience. The film is just full of semiotics that is very difficult to decode by an audience who is just looking for entertainment. Rather than seeing the analogy of power, the critique of cult worship and the parallelism between the Holocaust and Jonestown massacre, the audience saw it as a horror and detective film whether the protagonist Rowan Morrison was abducted and about to be sacrificed until finally, it was the detective Howie who was made a sacrifice. The film was created against the backdrop of crisis in the British film industry. It was created from an existing book entitled Ritual by David Pinner and then adapted into a film to become The Wicker Man. The production of the film was however problematic. The production outfit that produced the film was nearing bankruptcy before it was bought by John Bentley. The film was hurriedly created that its set was underfunded with the objective of just getting the film done. Many of the staff who worked in the film was not paid. And In the process of shooting the film, the production outfit British Lion Film was again bought by another company EMI Films (Steve). During these time also, British film was still considered as an unknown cinema, meaning that there was no popular film in Britain or that audiences were not interested to watch British films (Higson 500). Personally, I find the film the boring. We have to contextualize however when I said that I find the film boring. I would categorize it into a horror and detective film because of the scary aspect of the film. Detective Howie’s search for Rowan Morrison also made the film a detective film because the film kept us guessing on what would happen next. In saying that film is boring, I have to explain that I am a different audience compared to the audience when it was first shown in 1973. I am an audience who is used to visual effects in watching films and thus, my visual stimuli is conditioned to expect great cinematography with entertaining CGI effects that mesmerized the eyes. Understandably, the film The Wicker Man does not have these amusing visual elements because it was created in the midst of a crisis where its production outfit British Lion Film was nearing bankruptcy that it had to be bought twice, first by John Bentley then by EMI films for it to survive. It can be therefore be considered as a low budget film. So when it is shown to a modern audience like me, I will inadvertently get bored because my mind and my eyes are already conditioned to expect visual spectacles as what the modern films usually offer. So it follows that I am hesitant to fully agree with Christopher Lee that it is superb film because it did not meet my visual standard albeit the film has a terrific story line. This is not just my opinion but is also backed by award winning bodies as well as experts and academicians who hailed The Wicker Man as one of the best horror films of all time. Such, I disagree with the Warner Bros representative who called it as one of the worst ten films he had ever seen. He may be referring to the blockbuster value of the film when it was first released as it only had a moderate success. His gauge to value of the cinema may be more of an industry than an art (Mattelart 478) that is why he considered as one of the worst films ever Works Cited Franks, Benjamin. Demotic Possession: The hierarchic and anarchic in The Wicker Man. Glasgow: University of Glasgow, Crichton Publications (2005). Goldwyn, Samuel. The film value chain. Higson, Andrew. British cinema. Mattelart, Armand. European film policy and the response to Hollywood. Philips, Steve. "The various versions of The Wicker Man". 2002. Steves Web Page. The Wicker Man Issue, Cinefantastique, 1977 (Vol. 6 No. 3). Read More